The others on the list are, Dehradun's Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies and Himgiri Nabh Vishwavidyalaya, Sikkim's Eastern Institute for Integrated Learning in Management University and Sikkim Manipal University of Health Medical and Technological Sciences, Global Open University, Nagaland; Singhania University, Jhunjhunu and Integral University, Lucknow.

Minister of state for HRD D. Purandeswari told the Lok Sabha some of these universities functioned outside their territorial jurisdiction. Others functioned without the UGC's approval, she said.

Universities such as Amity were granted recognition as state universities and therefore could operate only within the state concerned. A HRD ministry official said: " Amity should function within UP, but it has set up off- campus centres in New Delhi and elsewhere.

This violates regulations."

The university's Institute of Criminology signed an agreement with the National Police Academy of India today, under which it will provide mid-career training for 420 police executives.

The three-year initiative will begin later in 2010 and will be co-directed by Lawrence Sherman, the University's Wolfson Professor of Criminology, and Sir Ian Blair, the former Scotland yard police commissioner and one of the UK's most experienced leaders in strategic policing and change management.

"Participants will be drawn from the elite 3,500 member Indian Police Service. Its members constitute the top tier of Indian policing, with collective responsibility for some two million police staff. Working in groups of 140, the trainees will take part in eight-week courses, six of which will be spent in India, followed by a further fortnight'straining in Cambridge," said an official press release from the university.

Cambridge's Institute of Criminology was selected by the Indian government following an international competition which involved tenders from a number of other universities from the UK, US, Australia and India itself.

It will provide the training in partnership with Cambridge Executive Education, the executive training arm of the University's Judge Business School.

The university already runs a Police Executive Programme, which has offered both a master's degree and diploma in Applied Criminology and Police Management and has been running since 1995.

Source: indiaedunews.net Cambridge University to train police chiefs in India

Union home secretary G. K. Pillai said this on Tuesday after the home ministry received many representations against the existing rules.

Pillai was participating in a debate organised by the Foundation for Media Professionals on ` Thought policing or fighting terror? Home ministry's curbs on foreign scholars'. The home ministry recently issued guidelines specifying that foreign participants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Sudan as well as foreigners of Pakistani origin and stateless persons have to apply for security clearance from the ministry at least six weeks in advance of an event to get a conference visa.

" We are reworking the system so that academicians on the staff rolls of reputed institutions in these countries wouldn't need security clearance and can come to India easily. The ministry is not trying to do any thought policing.

Source: Mail Today Govt To Ease Conference Visa Rules For Foreign Scholars

"Although, the proposal is for setting up all twenty IIITs in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode, since industry participation may not be forthcoming in some states like in the north east, it is proposed that IIITs in the north east may be set up by the central government with contributions from Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DONER)," said the Minister of state for HRD, D. Purandeswari, in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today.

Besides this, 300 polytechnics are to be set up through PPP by the state government/ union territories with roughly one fourth of the cost of capital assets being provided by the government of India with a ceiling of Rs.3 crore.

"These 300 polytechnics will be selected in consultation with the state government/ union territories, various industrial organizations such as CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM and PHD Chamber of Commerce, etc," said an official.

"There are three legislations we are planning to propose for improving higher education in the country, including one allowing domestic and foreign players to set upeducational institutes, (and two others for) setting up National Accreditation Authority and the Educational Finance Corporation," Sibal said.

He was speaking at the Conscious Capitalism Summit organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here.

Sibal said the second legislature would reduce the government's intervention in the functioning of private institutes.

"The National Accreditation Authority would do all the evaluation process of the institutes as per their declarations made on their websites pertaining to the infrastructure, faculty members, etc. for the quality education," he said.

The minister also informed the house that the proposal to the Planning Commission for setting up the Educational Finance Corporation would "Reduce the fee structures inprivate institutes as they would be provided with long-term commercial borrowings."

Through this corporation, students will be able to fund their education without depending on their parents, Sibal said.

"Only about 12 percent students enrolled in schools enter in the colleges for higher education who fall in the age group of 18 to 24 years. We want to increase the resources for them and states alone cannot do it," Sibal said.

"The biometric system will be installed in all the 300 medical colleges across India within two months," said MCI president Ketan Desai.

Dr Vedprakash Mishra, chairman of MCI's Academic Cell, said: "The 10 regional centres being run by the MCI for give only basic orientation for three days. The apical body, however, will help upgrade courses so that a talent pool is created and there are experts to teach different medical subjects."

At present, 1,000 teachers have been given orientation and the MCI aims to make a basic medical education course mandatory for all medical teachers across India every five years.

Officals said the apical centre will also have a web portal so that medical education courses can be accessed from across the country. There will also be a central server in MCI's Delhi office so that biometric attendance across 300 colleges could be monitored from one centre. "There have been several incidents of doctors working in one hospital or college but reporting in some other hospital. With the central server system, such practices would be curbed," Dr Desai added.

The MS University of Baroda, for example, boasts of a four-star grade awarded by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC); the only catch is that this rating was annulled as far ago as in January 2006. This is not a solitary case. Seventy other Indian institutes, including Pune University, Mangalore University and the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages in Hyderabad, have been advertising rankings that expired long ago.

At a time when the ministry of human resources development is hitting out hard at private and deemed universities, its own institutes are sitting pretty on old grades, which are no longer valid. While accreditation is not mandatory, NAAC rules specify that grades are valid only for five years after they are awarded and they expire at the end of that term. Colleges and universities have to re-apply for inspection to receive fresh ranking. In fact, in 2008, the NAAC's executive committee had announced that the institutes whose grades were about to complete the fiveyear term or were in the last quarter of the fifth year should submit a letter of intent and request for re-accreditation. But most universities gave re-assessment a skip and continued splashing old grades.

Source: Times Of India By Hemali Chhapia Univs continue with expired grades

The initiative was launched in Delhi's Tihar Jail in 1994, but as a special gesture, the university has given the project a major impetus by declaring that the education it offers to jail inmates will, henceforth, be free.

"All jail inmates in the country will now be able to access free education as per their choice," the university informed in a statement. Students do not even have to pay examination or late fees.

"They can enrol themselves any time of the year, appear when they are ready to take their examinations and get certificates which will ensure them vocational advantage as well as access to quality life," the statement said.

Source: The Tribune IGNOU offers free education to jail inmates

Schools feel this problem may not arise next year if they make their own question papers. CBSE chairperson Vineet Joshi has hinted at this. ``We will be more than happy if schools make their own question papers. We wanted to establish a minimum standard to be followed by the schools and facilitate the completion of curriculum.''

This time, many students got hold of question papers of other schools through coaching centres. For instance, there were around 12 sets of papers made by CBSE for each subject. The same paper was rotated and used by different schools. Usha Ram, principal, Laxman Public School, and member of CBSE committee working on CCE, said, ``Every school has been given a different code through SMS to access the question papers sent by the Board on a CD. We have maintained full secrecy. The problem will no longer be there. We will set our own papers from next time.''

Source: Times Of India By Neha Pushkarna & Manash Pratim Gohain CCE: Schools may set own Class IX papers

The process of granting the status is underway, he told reporters during his visit to participate in the convocation of the Kashi Hindu Vishwavidyalaya or BHU.

He said only 12.4 per cent students passing intermediate, were getting admissions in graduation courses. To increase the percentage, the government had to attract private and global players to invest in education sector for increasing the number of universities and colleges for higher education.

The government is planning to create a mechanism to check the quality of education and infrastructure in private centers of higher education, he said.

Sibal said there was a huge demand of skilled hands and experts in all sectors across the world and India could fulfil all those requirements by ensuring quality education.